The winners of the100th Nats (L-R), Angstrom Eberenz - Senior, Orestes Hernandez - Open, Jake Moon – Advanced, and Wesley Smith - Junior.
By Matt Neumann
Now that the 100th NATS has wrapped up, it is time to put down some final thoughts. During the days of competition, the weather was pretty good all week… a rarity. I think only on Monday morning did we have some iffy weather and that only turned out to be some sprinkles. Other than that, we really did not have any bad wind to speak of. Temperatures were average for this time of year in the Midwest, with highs in the mid to upper 80's. Yes, sunscreen was one of the topics of the week, but that is better than needing umbrellas for an outdoor activity.
As with any competition, there were always some ups and downs. Some people exceeded their expectations and some were disappointed. That is also normal. For the most part, things went off without a hitch. Yes, there still were some glitches, but they were minimal. Unfortunately, some pilots did lose airplanes. That is inevitable with such a large gathering. The more fliers you have, the odds increase that someone will lose something at some point. That is a shame but that is also model airplanes. As the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Sometimes things come down too hard. Hopefully these people can take this experience and come back up higher than before.
The scariest thing happened on Sunday, when someone got hit in the back with a plane. Fortunately, it came to a happy ending and this person was not severely hurt. He got away with some cuts and bruises… LOTS of bruises. I am sure he really felt it the next morning. But, he will be just fine.
The only other negative (I think I am the only one that it really affected) was that the new pull test machines were not calibrated correctly. We wound up pulling 6 pounds more on our pull test than what we should have. This caused my lines to start breaking, so I had to go to my backups, which I found were not set up right. I worked hard to get things set up but they never quite got to where they were before. I am not angry or going to dwell on that. It is model airplanes after all.
There were many positives to take back with me. One of the biggest positives was Paul Walker's incredible B-17. It was a marvel of imagination, engineering and persistence. Many can imagine things such as this, but do not have the design ability or the persistence to complete it from beginning to end. This was a 2-year process from pencil-to-paper to the first flight. It still took persistence to keep it flying and to work out the bugs in the electronics, but he did it. My hat’s off to him for making one of my all-time favorite CLPA planes.
Another thing that is always a positive is making new friends and catching up with old ones. That first day when I get to Muncie is always one of the happiest times for me. I get to finally say hello in-person to friends I have not seen since last year. The greetings I get and give are some of the happiest times for me. We are all like an extended family and it really shows. When I had a problem with the lines, several people jumped in and offered to stick around and help me sort things out. Advice is always free to anyone that asks. And sometimes even when they don't. We are all trying to help the other person do better. Even if that means they will beat us in the end. It is that type of family.
Another big positive that I will always remember is Dan Banjock flying his little .010 CL plane with the kids, and the bigger kids helping the little kids fly. I don't know how he does it, but Danny probably would outlast the Energizer bunny. He comes to have fun and he succeeds like no one else.
Something else that made this Nats memorable is that there were more multi-motored planes than ever. No less than five multi-motored planes competed this year. There were four twins and a quad. I think electric is taking over the masses, but two IC-engined planes finishing in the top five shows that IC engines certainly are not going away completely any time soon. Even multi-motored planes do not give up anything, as proven by Paul who made the top five with his B-17.
I would also like to thank all of the volunteers. It takes over 40 people to run this event. It has to be one of the most labor-intensive events around. The volunteers all did a wonderful job. My hat is off to John Hill and the team he put together. You guys are also champs in my book.
I will sign off with congratulations to all the winners this year: Jake Moon in Advanced class, Wesley Smith in Junior, Angstrom Eberenz in Senior and, of course, Orestes Hernandez is the Open winner and Walker Cup winner for the 100th Nats. Oh, did I also mention that Orestes also won the World Championship in Australia earlier this year? He did. That means he is having a year to remember.
I am counting the days until next year.
